“I was not born to put food in the white man’s hand.”
~Sitting Bull
In the entrepreneurial spirit of America, some innovative tobacco sellers sought unconventional images for their trade signs to set them apart from the more established merchants.
It seems that the merchant’s customers often remembered the quality look and feel of specific wooden Indians over the actual tobacco products sold by the store itself. As a result, capitalists found that these Indians would enhance the flavor of high-class, cigar-friendly, smoking rooms. In addition, they increased the appearance of fashionable hotel lobbies and went nicely on the sidewalk of the local tobacconist shop.
Indelibly and romantically etched in the minds of many, the cigar store indian still brings back nostalgic memories to this day.
But the reality of the American Indian couldn’t have been further from the folklore propagated by white merchants.
Removed from their land and forced to live on reservations, Native Americans have suffered mightily–especially on the central and northern plains.
This photograph is a composite of several images.
I found this Cigar Store Indian outside a quaint general store in a small town in eastern Nebraska. Carved more than 100 years ago, this Warrior has greeted customers and tourists for decades.
In stark contrast, the landscape for this image was photographed in southwestern South Dakota near Pine Ridge.
The juxtaposition of the image is as startling as the reality.
Located just over the Nebraska border, Pine Ridge is situated in the poorest county in America.
Unemployment on the Reservation hovers around 80% and 49% live below the Federal poverty level. Adolescent suicide is four times the national average. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewer. Many families use wood stoves to heat their homes. The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and in the low 50s for females and the infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average.
Because of their sentimental value, Cigar Store Indians continue to fetch thousands of dollars among antique traders all over the world.
Cigar Store Indian, eastern NE.
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